343 



SECTION V. 



The Arts. 



Op the domestic architecture of the day, king Henry is said, 

 when he visited DubUn, to have constructed near the present site of 

 Saint Andrew's Church, a palace " of smooth twigs or wattles after 

 the Irish fashion ;"* and in this structure the English sovereign held 

 his Christmas, and "feasted all the princes and nobility of Ireland who 

 had done homage to him."-f- Cambrensis has given a similar descrip- 

 of the castle of Pembroke.:}; Need we add, that not a trace of any of 

 these edifices, no more than of those at Tara, can now be distinguished. 

 It is not, however, to be considered, that structures of stone for civil 

 or military purposes, continued to be unknown to the natives of Ireland, 

 although the passage in Saint Bernard, hereafter mentioned, has been 

 cited to that effect. The castle of Athlone is mentioned§ by the Four 

 Masters in 1129. " A castle erected at Tuam of lime and stone, by 

 Roderic O'Conor, King of Connaught in 1161, got the name of 

 " castrum mirificum," not because of the noVelty as being built of 

 lime and stone, but because it was vaulted and built with more ele- 

 gance than was usual in these times,"ll while Smith, in his History of 



* Hoveden describes it as "palatium regium, miro artificio de virgis Isevigatis ad modum 

 patriae illius constructum." 



f Littleton's Hist. Henry Second, vol. iii. p. 86. 



I " Primus hoc castrum Arnulphus De Montgomery sub Anglorum rege Henrico Prime, 

 ex virgis et cespite tenui, satis exile construxit." — Itin. Cambr. lib. 1. c. 12. 



§ Post, in this section. 



II Cambr. Eversus, p. 117. See Ware's Antiquities, p. 134. 



